DEJA VU: INTERVIEW WITH HENRY JAGLOM

A Cineman Syndicate feature

DEJA VU: INTERVIEW WITH HENRY JAGLOM
* By Prairie Miller *

Though Henry Jaglom can be counted as one of the founding fathers of American indies, he's at heart just an old fashioned romantic kind of guy, as evidenced by his latest movie, Deja Vu. The visually and verbally lush story about destiny in love, which is a sort of family affair starring Jaglom's wife Victoria Font, and Vanessa Redgrave and her actress mom Rachel Kempson, crosses generations and continents in a magical realism flight of fancy. Jaglom also had lots to say about his inspirations and influences, that include creatively teaming at one time or another with Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Orson Welles in works that helped define the shape and scope of contemporary independent film.

PRAIRIE MILLER: I'm taking a guess that your latest movie Deja Vu was a real obsession of the imagination for you.

HENRY JAGLOM: I've been obsessed all my life with this story. I wanted to make Deja Vu for twenty five years. I've been obsessed with the idea that someday you run into this person, and you realize that whatever state your life is in, that this is the person you were meant to be with. And that your entire life changes on a dime the second you meet them.

Also, what is it that pulls people together, and what magic exists in the world that makes two people who have grown up in different times and different places connect so totally that they feel they've known each other all their lives?

PM: Whew!

HJ: [He laughs] It's a kind of magical theme. For me, that sums up that kind of mystery of the dream of perfect love. Somehow it's haunted me all my life.

PM: What is it that fascinates you about the irresistible impulses around human longing and passion? But wait a minute, did you just answer that?

HJ: Well, no...What fascinates me about that really I think, is that ever since I was a child, I remember seeing the way my mother was. She was married for sixty years to my father, and they had quite a happy marriage and loved each other. I'm sure they had ups and downs, but they basically loved each other. And yet my mother would put on an old song from the thirties or forties, and yearn for something. Clearly, she was yearning.

And everybody I've known in this world yearns at one time or another for some kind of dreamlike romantic encounter. We're pulled toward the songs and the music that reflects that longing. I wanted to capture something about the human condition that I felt would really talk to everybody I've ever known. .

PM: Talk a little about all the exotic settings in Deja Vu.

HJ: When you ask an audience to go on this romantic journey, to take this leap of faith and go for it, I think you have to give them something which I normally don't give them in my movies. You have to give them, I think, a journey. And the more of a journey it is, the more willing they are to leave and to go with you, to go for it in life and not resist.

PM: I'm curious why you chose a forties vintage soundtrack. Enlighten me.

HJ: I've always wanted to wake up and go out the building, and find that it's the 1940's. I don't know why.

PM: Do you think the past was more romantic?

HJ: Well, I know that's not the reality. I know that's an illusion, but yes, it's an illusion that works on me. There seems to be a grace, there seems to be an elegance and style in the music, the look, the clothes, the movies. I'm pulled in by all of that. And I wanted these characters to be caught in a web of the past that would engulf them.

PM: Conversation is a main ingredient of your movies. Why do you favor conversation as a dramatic tool?

HJ: It's what we spend our whole lives doing. Right now, what are we doing? We're talking. I mean, most people spend their time not dealing with car chases, not dealing with creatures who arrive from outer space. Most of us deal most of the time with two people sitting in a room having a conversation, exploring issues that they deal with: love, loss, desire, romance, happiness...I want my films to reflect the real life that I feel around me, our times.

PM: You did something really amazing getting Vanessa Redgrave together on screen for the first time with her mom, actress Rachel Kempson, for Deja Vu. How did you pull that off?

HJ: Well, Vanessa has always been my dream, because I think she's without question the greatest actress in the English speaking film world. And I needed somebody incredibly persuasive who could push the main characters to go for it, to go for each other.

I thought the way that could be done, is if the person were someone who in their own life really went for it. And who in life more than Vanessa Redgrave goes for it? She's a brave creature who sometimes takes foolish chances. But she goes for it, and she takes huge leaps.

I met with her and I said, can you tell me what makes you so strong, and what makes you know that it's okay to be who you are? And she told me that story about how she was a timid child, which she tells in Deja Vu. When she was in the hospital, a girl in the next room sang The White Cliffs Of Dover, and it affected her life. I showed her my script full of references to that song, which was the key to my movie. And she said, I've got to do this. There's magic here

Then I told her, I need someone to play your mother, and I went and asked Rachel if she'd do it. I said, can you play Vanessa's mother and be very upset with her for never being around when you really need her? She said, oh I can do that! I told her, you've got the part. We'll make this work. And she was wonderful in it.

PM: What was it like directing the two of them together?

HJ: Fun. Exciting. I sort of just sat back, watching their relationship bloom on screen.

PM: Tell me about your first movie experience as an editor on Easy Rider. What was it like working with those three actors in Easy Rider who would go on to become movie legends: Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda?

HJ: We were all kids in the sixties, and it formed us more than anything. And Easy Rider was kind of the culmination of that experience. Everybody was high all of the time while we were making the movie, and yet we were really liberating ourselves from the conventions of Hollywood. We thought we were the New Wave of Hollywood filmmakers.

So there was a kind of wonderful free spirit. We were actors, writers, directors doing everything in each others' movies, and Easy Rider was where we all came together. It is really to Dennis' credit, because he is the filmmaker behind the whole thing. All of us contributed to a piece of the culture that summed up the sixties, and then we went on our separate ways. But Jack Nicholson is still a close friend of mine.

PM: What was it like working with the three of them at the same time in the same place. Would you say it was overwhelming?

HJ: No, because we were all so high, that I don't think we knew if it was overwhelming! We were just constantly smoking dope. I haven't had a calmer movie experience since. Some of the other people flipped out from time to time on more hallucinogenic stuff, but I was just happy on a little grass here and there. It was just very peaceful, and I loved it. It was a great learning place. I learned everything I know about film working on Easy Rider.

PM: Did you have any idea at the time that it would become a groundbreaking screen classic? HJ: No, no! We thought it was a bike movie, a road movie. We didn't realize what Dennis had in mind. I mean, Dennis was a real artist, and he had a real vision. And I think everybody underestimated him.

When we showed it to the studio, they weren't high. They looked at it and they thought, well we can maybe squeeze this in. And then they started seeing the reaction of young audiences to the movie. It was astonishing.

PM: And what was it like working with Orson Welles?

HJ: I can't tell you what it was like, because Orson became my closest friend in the world during the last fifteen years of his life. So it was just like working with the guy you know best. You know, it was wonderfully familiar and I adored him. He was not this intimidating ogre that he was to everybody else. Not to me.

I don't know if you know this story, but in Paris when the press asked him, why are you and Henry Jaglom such great friends when you come from such different worlds and you make such different movies? Orson's answer was, Henry and I are girlfriends. And it was on the front page of Figaro in Paris.

They were very shocked, they didn't know what he meant. What he was trying to say was, we had this great intimacy together which men don't really have very often. We cried together, and got very emotional together. He was this wonderful big girlfriend that I had. Yeah...

PM: What influence did Orson Welles have on you?

HJ: He influenced me in the sense that he encouraged freedom and trust. He encouraged you to make the films you wanted to make. Not to think about what's commercial, not to think about what's mainstream or what will make money. But he said, you have to live with the film for the rest of your life. Make it as good a film as you can, and don't worry about anything else. That had an enormous effect on me. But we had very different approaches to filmmaking.

The filmmaker that I was profoundly connected to was Ingmar Bergman. Bergman's films were about people sitting and talking about what was happening to their marriages. Nobody in America was doing that, and I just vowed that if I got a chance to make movies, that's what I would do. PM: Was it difficult or uncomfortable filming your wife in sex scenes in Deja Vu?

HJ: No. I mean, we're actors, we're professionals. I don't think filming my wife in nude or love scenes is problematic at all.

PM: Do you ever suspect or fear she might be enjoying it?

HJ: I hope she was enjoying it! She's supposed to enjoy it because of the work. One always hopes she's not enjoying it too much! I'm smart enough not to ask her...

PM: How did you get into this crazy movie business?

HJ: Oh, I've just been obsessed with it since I was little. When I was eight, my mother took me to the movies, and I said to her, what happens to them when they go off screen? Where do they go? So she said, I bet you're going to be a filmmaker.

It excites me. Every time I make a film, I create a brand new universe. The universe isn't scary for that period of time you're making a movie, because you're in control. You get to play God. It's a very, very nice position.